Innovation: The Key to the Future of African Cities

Jul 09, 2011 | Written by Lauri Elliott

A continuing megatrend for the next generation is urbanization and Africa is no exception. In fact, no country has achieved sustainable economic growth without urbanization, according to the “State of World Cities 2010/2011” by the United Nations. Cape Town represents 14% of South Africa’s GDP and 6.1% of the country’s population while Johannesburg (city proper) represents 15% of South Africa’s GDP and 6.3% of the country’s population, according to the report.

In some countries like South Korea, the major urban hub (Seoul) represents over 40% of the country’s GDP. Seoul claims 48.6% of South Korea’s GDP and Brussels claims 44% of Belgium’s GDP. On a global scale, the top 100 cities by population account for 25% of the world’s GDP.

As of 2010, Africa had 47 cities with more than a million inhabitants, accounting for 31.6% of total urban population in Africa according to the UN report.  The three largest cities on the continent in 2010 were Cairo (about 11 million), Lagos (10.5 million), and Kinshasa (8.7 million).

Cities are places where we work and live and in the current context are extremely important to economic and social development in countries. A key of objective of the Gauteng Global City Region (GCR) in South Africa is to create an inclusive region, socially and economically. But as the current challenges faced attest, this is not necessarily an easy task.

Christopher Hire, Executive Director of Innovation at 2ThinkNow in Australia, says innovation is key to making cities what we want them to be socially and economically. Hire and his team have developed the Innovation Cities Program and Index. On the Innovations Cities Emerging Index, there are seven African cities – Cape Town, Casablanca, Johannesburg, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, and Port Louis – listed out of sixteen cities.

A city is described as a Nexus, Hub, Node, Influencer, or Upstart. A nexus city is one that is critical for both economic and social innovation. A hub city has dominance or influence on key economic or social segments. A node city performs well across many segments. Cape Town is described as a node city for innovation.

Hire says that many policy officials have bought into the concept of innovation clusters, where academic, government, and private sector institutions are brought together to form a triple helix of innovation. Silicon Valley is held up as the model, but Hire says Silicon Valley has some elements of an innovation cluster but not all. In fact, Hire suggests that cities need a framework that will allow them to develop their own pattern of innovation. “What works in one city and gets acclaim may fail in another city,” concludes Hire.

The key issues or trends that cities need to address successfully over the next 15 to 80 years are equity, economics, and the environment. The objective of Innovation Cities is to improve “social and economic performance of (existing) cities over a period of approximately 15 years accounting for these trends,“ indicates Hire.

The Innovation Cities methodology measures the pre-cursors for innovation, such as libraries and internet cafes, as well as outcomes like the number of patents. The indicators used in the methodology are organized into three pillars, or factors, for innovation – cultural assets like libraries, human infrastructure like water and food supply, and network markets.

Paul Romer, Director of Charter Cities, looks at cities a different way – how to build them from scratch in developing nations. Romer proposes that developing nations contract with capitalist nations to create entirely new cities.

Romer uses the historical success of Hong Kong as a prototype. More so, he looks to China’s implementation of special economic zones in which autonomous areas were established to spur economic growth based on capitalistic systems in a country which still holds to a different political, economic, and social system – communism. Shenzhen was one of the first of these economic zones and is now a megacity with over 10 million people.

By creating cities from scratch, developing nations can take advantage of technology which will move them forward instead of being bogged down in the past.  However, Romer notes that new technology must be accompanied by new rules. He uses the example of how rules did not keep up with fishing technologies so great harm has come to our sea ecosystems.

In these new cities, people would opt-in as in the case of Shenzhen. In Shenzhen, although the city administrators are accountable to the Chinese government, rules they enforce are much different. “Foreign firms, people, and technologies (are allowed) to work and prosper with locals under the rules of a market-based economy. Many people chose to opt into the new rules in Shenzhen…,” says Romer in “Technologies, Rules, and Progress: The Case for Charter Cities.”

Brandon Fuller with Charter Cities says, “Ideal candidate countries are those that have a coastline, a relatively high ratio of land to population, and political leadership that sees the potential for hub cities to drive growth and development in the country and region. Under these conditions, it is feasible to set aside a city-sized portion of land that could eventually host millions of residents and attract a level of investment sufficient to create a regional hub city with a port and airport.”

But even with potential, it all falls on the political leadership of the country. Romer says, “The countries (including those in Africa) that have shown some interest in the charter cities concept are typically helmed by leaders committed to changing course and willing to think about leveraging their global network of allies to do it. Because these leaders oversee governments that are historically characterized by political instability, they have a sense of urgency about economic development.”

Romer also notes that “They’ve typically thought about incorporating special reform zones into their development strategy. They’re interested in charter cities because they understand that innovative forms of governance in such zones (be it partnership with other countries or autonomy for an internally established development authority), combined with the freedom of would-be residents to opt-in, could mitigate political risk and lead to much higher levels of investment and job creation.”

The notion of creating new cities is no longer a foreign concept in Africa albeit from a different perspective. Tatu City is a satellite city near Nairobi, Kenya in which 62,000 people will live in a new form of urban development. It will have some autonomy, but unlike charter cities, it is not focused on the central issue of economic development but how to develop urban space to accommodate the rising number of urban dwellers.

For me, it will be interesting to see which African country will take on the bigger opportunity presented by models like Charter Cities and frameworks like Innovation Cities.

Featured image is Omar Bongo Boulevard in Libreville Gabon.  This image is part of the Africa Night Lights exhibit by Philippe Sibelly. To learn more, visit www.theotherafrica.eu.

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